


who's a good girl?

by TheLillie



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, EDIT POST 179 HI EVERYONE IM NOT OKAY, Established Relationship, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Nightmares, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), alone...except for what's in her head, and a surprise segment of martin being cute about his boyf over the phone!!!, and now she's just gone right back to bastarding around, anyways acab but daisy was TRYING to be better and im SAD ABOUT IT, background jmart, basira all alone right before the apocalypse smacks, daisy's in her head, except for WHO's in her head, goddamn you alice, spoiler alert: it's daisy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLillie/pseuds/TheLillie
Summary: “Did you ever love me?” Daisy asked.Basira swallowed. “Yes.”“Is that why you’re breaking your promise?”“It’s why I’m keeping it.”
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	who's a good girl?

Daisy’s keys had been found on the ground outside her door, just beside the streaks of blood coating the hallway. She’d caught Julia Montauk while still inside the Institute, but taken her back home to kill, like a fox dragging a carcass to its den―but then the carcass must have snapped back, and there was a scuffle, and the apartment was destroyed and Julia escaped. Now Daisy was gone, run off God knows where chasing after her―a hunt Basira was sure she’d intentionally drag on, after how quickly it’d almost just ended. The keys being left behind was only evidence of one thing: she didn’t plan on coming back.

They let Basira take the keys home. Half of them were to her flat, anyway.

It used to be that Basira would get brusque, panicked text messages or pounds on the door late at night; giving Daisy her own set of keys to the place was just easier. Every now and then, Daisy would slip quietly into the flat and curl up on top of the sheets next to her, skin hot and shaking until Basira’s cool presence calmed her down. Sometimes every other night, sometimes with weeks in between. Sometimes they would both lie there and sleep in silence, back to back and nothing else. But sometimes Daisy would press her forehead between Basira’s shoulderblades and clutch her arms around her and ask, almost whimpering, “Did I do good?”

And Basira would say “yes, of course you did,” or “you did what needed to be done,” or she’d just turn over and hold her and kiss her forehead until she fell asleep. It took a while for Basira to really know what Daisy had done each of these times, but in hindsight she always suspected.

And then Daisy was gone, and home wasn’t safe, and Basira moved into the Institute. And then Jon came back, and staying so near him just felt wrong, and she moved out again.

After the coffin, Daisy found her own new place to store her own things, but still climbed into Basira’s bed every night. More often than not, they’d be silent. And when Daisy asked, “am I doing good?” Basira just kissed her and hushed her, gently. She didn’t like lying.

* * *

She couldn’t chase after her, though her promise tugged at her like fishing wire round her gut. She had other obligations first―had to keep a cool head, had to keep responsible. With Daisy hunting, Jon and Martin gone, Elias at large, and Peter Lukas vanished, Basira was the only one left of the Archives. So she sat and waited, answered questions, gathered information, laid low. Most often, though, she lay in her empty bed, angry that she couldn’t think or manage to do anything else. Work at the Magnus Institute was terrible, but at least it was _something._

So now she lay there, holding Daisy’s key ring tight in her fist, pressing the cold metal to her lips, wishing in the back of her mind that it tasted like her. It just tasted like steel. If she were a bit more poetic she supposed she could say Daisy was steel enough, but no―on nights like these Daisy tasted like moss and sweat, like the barest scrub of fifty-pence soap, like cinnamon Altoids and blood.

Her phone buzzed.

Basira looked over at it, lying on the edge of the mattress, screen bright. Who was calling her? She sat up a little. Unfamiliar number, unfamiliar area code―not coming from anywhere around London. She frowned and declined the call. Not today, telemarketer.

But she’d only just lay back down when the phone buzzed again. Same number. Maybe not a telemarketer, then? Or a scam, or…

She rolled her eyes and picked the phone up to her ear.

“You’ve reached Basira Hussain.”

“Basira! Thank God, I’d―”

She zipped upright. “Martin?!”

“When my first call didn’t go through, I thought maybe I’d got the number wrong, but I dialed it copying right from my contacts on my phone―”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Oh, um―I p-probably shouldn’t say, but―”

“Right, no, that’s―” She dropped Daisy’s keys onto the nightstand and stood, pacing as she talked. “Okay, so why are you calling me?”

“Well, I told Jon I’d check up―see how things are back home and everything.”

“You are with Jon, then? You two are together?”

At that Martin made a weird sound. Like a breath, like a _hmph,_ but also like...well, Basira had barely heard Martin laugh once since she joined the Institute, but this sounded like an honest-to-God _giggle._

“Is that funny?”

Martin coughed. “No, sorry, it’s just―well, yeah. We’re...we’re together.”

“Yeah, that was my guess.”

“No, th―”

“Police want to say he and Elias teamed up to kill or kidnap you and Lukas, but I was holding out that you two made it out somehow.”

“Yeah. And...w-we’re _together_ together. Now. Sort of. Not―” His voice was soft, hesitant but in a happy way. He was happier than she ever would have guessed him to be. Happier than she’d ever heard him before. “We haven’t quite said the B-word yet, but it’s―it’s basically where we’re at now.”

Basira was silent. She’d absentmindedly made her way over to the window on the other side of her bed, staring out. It wasn’t much of a view. Gray streets and gray roofs of the buildings around her. But out a little further the orangey sun was setting, and the sky was a dull pink.

“Basira? Still there?”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “Um. Congrats, I guess. Damn. When did that happen?”

“Just now, really. It’s―it’s kind of a long story.”

“So what are you gonna do now?”

“Lie low, I guess? Take things as they come. We’re safe, for now, so we’re just gonna kind of...wait for everything to pan out.”

“Gonna be waiting a while, then. It’s a mess back here.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“No confirmed deaths yet. Loads of destruction, though, and with no Head and no Archives but me the Institute’s complete chaos. I keep going in to do my job, but...there’s no job to do.”

“L―like, you’re being compelled to go back in? Are we still tied to it?”

Basira sighed. “I think I’m just bored. You’d know better than me. How does Jon look?”

“He’s good. He’s...well, he’s tired. Been eating pretty normal, considering, but he hasn’t left the cabin except once to go shopping down in the village with me. Maybe it is the distance from the Institute that’s getting him down.”

She turned her back to the window. A cabin. A cabin up from a village, where they’d be safe for a while, and where Martin apparently couldn’t call from his cell phone.

The orange sunlight glinted off Daisy’s key ring.

“I know where you are,” Basira said. “I’ll send Jon some statements when I can.”

* * *

Basira slept with her back to the window, facing the door. For a few reasons―kept her from ever having sun in her eyes first thing in the morning, easier to roll out of bed and head right for the toilet, that side of her body was more comfortable to sleep on anyway. The only downside was solved easily enough by curtains and repression: the creeping worry of something looking in on her. The never being able to see if something had found its way past those locks.

The glass squeaked as it was pushed open, and Basira woke without moving. She kept still as the curtains swished to the side and a draft rustled her short hair and a pair of bare feet hit the floor. The window slid shut again. The room smelled like moss, and like blood.

The floor creaked. The side of the mattress dipped. Basira's stillness became rigid. She didn't keep any weapon under her pillow. She had a gun and a baton in the nightstand drawer, but Daisy knew about them, and would be on guard. She had a knife she'd just started keeping right under the mattress.

She didn't reach for it. Daisy crawled into the bed behind her, heat waving off her like an aura. Her hand touched her shoulder. Her forehead touched her spine.

Basira exhaled, her back curving into Daisy’s touch.

Daisy wrapped her legs around Basira’s and pulled her close with them and held her. Her jeans were rough on Basira’s bare skin―dusted in some places, caked in others. The frays at the edges of each rip in the denim brushed and tickled, and she could feel scratches and scabs on the skin underneath. In a few spots, the blood was still sticky.

“You awake?” Daisy whispered.

“Yes.”

Daisy wasn’t here to hurt her. Basira didn’t like lying, and had nothing to win by it.

“Good.”

She lightly kissed her, on that little spot exposed by the drooping collar of the oversized t-shirt she slept in, right where neck met shoulder. Then she shifted a little and did it again, a few inches higher up her neck. Then again, where neck met jaw.

Basira exhaled, a little louder than intended―something like a sigh. Her heartbeat was climbing, but not quite for fight-or-flight. For an instinct even older than fear.

She clamped her mouth shut. Keep your guard up, Detective. Keep focus. Reason your way through this.

Daisy’s mouth opened, wet teeth gently scraping across Basira’s skin, breath hot, and somehow Basira managed not to shiver.

“Did you ever love me?” Daisy asked.

Basira swallowed, hand drifting down the side of the mattress. “Yes.”

“Is that why you’re breaking your promise?”

She reached her prize.

“It’s why I’m keeping it.”

Quick as a shot, Basira seized the knife and swung.

Daisy shoved backward off the bed, the blade plunging into the mattress instead. Basira snapped the knife out and leapt after her. They slammed against the wall. Basira stabbed again, but Daisy rolled and the knife sank into plaster. In the second Basira took to wrench it out, Daisy lunged with teeth and claws.

They hit the corner. Basira’s knees buckled, but her arms seized up, rigid and straight. Daisy’s claws were tight on Basira’s neck, but Basira’s knife was tight on Daisy’s.

Daisy grinned and swallowed, the movement making the blade bite ever-so-slightly into her skin. “So you’ll kill me because you love me?”

“It’s what you asked,” Basira coughed, her throat straining under Daisy’s nails, almost drawing blood. “It’s not what I want.”

“Yeah. You’d much rather use me.” Daisy bared her teeth. “You wanted me to be this, wanted your own personal monster to tear open the rest of ‘em. Didn’t matter what _I_ wanted then, did it?”

“Then doesn’t matter. I’m doing what you wanted now―”

“You were going to kill me eventually anyway. But I’d rather be shot like a rabid dog than like a horse with a broken leg.”

Basira snarled and slashed. Daisy twisted sideways, back arching against the side of Basira’s bed, and Basira surged onto her. With a grunt Daisy kneed her in the gut and Basira was sent somersaulting over her, neck bending and shrieking at an angle just-past-wrong. She landed in a kneeling heap on the floor.

She was at the nightstand. She flung open the drawer and scrambled for her gun―

Daisy vaulted forward over the bed and pinned her shoulders down. Her head cracked hard against the floor and the thin carpet did nothing to cushion the blow.

“You know what I wanted, Basira?” Daisy panted. “I wanted to get _better._ Not be _this._ You helped Melanie and you went after Jon and made them not be monsters, but me? From me, you _wanted_ a monster.”

Basira stretched. The gun had been knocked away and spun across the floor, but the knife was inches from her hand―but Daisy’s thumb dug into the muscle of her shoulder, and every movement was a new spurt of pain. She choked and huffed. “I needed a defender.”

“And I needed support in getting better, but since you weren’t willing to give me that, the least you could do was kill me once I got worse.”

“So what do you want from me now?” Basira said. “To say I’m sorry? You want me all ashamed that I didn’t love you enough?

“You are.”

Her fingertips pinched around the end of the knife and curled.

Basira thrust her hips to the side, catching Daisy at the waist and throwing her off. Daisy thrashed and hooked her leg around Basira’s, ripped denim on skin, and took her tumbling. The knife dragged through the carpet. Basira struggled and skidded and shoved to her feet―Daisy kept hold on her shoulders―

Daisy hurled her into the wall, her legs on either side of Basira’s, lifting her up, her nails piercing the skin beneath her collarbones, her teeth ready to bite just under her jaw. Their heartbeats both hammered right in tandem. Basira’s tiptoes just brushed the floor.

“I loved you,” Basira gasped. “I lov―I loved you and I w-wanted to help you, and I failed. And now you’re not you anymore and I just want to do what you asked me―”

“You said you didn’t want to,” Daisy sneered in an almost sing-song voice.

“I d―I don’t! But you made me promise!”

“And you’re just gonna follow that, then? Do whatever I told you?”

Basira exhaled and let her hands drop. She didn’t let go of her knife, but she didn’t hold it so tight now. She let her eyes fall to Daisy’s.

“Yeah,” she said. “Because I depended on you for everything. You were the basis for everything I did and everything I am, and then I got left alone in that circus while you were off playing Warrior Cats and getting yourself trapped in an evil eternity coffin, and I spent eight months without my foundation. I counted on you to get me through it all and then you vanished, and all of a sudden I had to learn learn how to exist without you. And I did it. And I can’t go back.”

“But you can, though.”

Daisy’s grip loosened. Basira didn’t yank away.

“You can go right back to the way we were before,” Daisy said.

Her breath was cinnamon.

She kissed her. And she was right. It was exactly like she remembered―her warmth, her taste. The push of her tongue. The firmness of her hands. They were the same as every kiss they’d had before. They were on a doorstep after an awkward first date. They were in a squad car after a fruitless stakeout. They were in a phonebox after a rained-out picnic. They were in her flat after an aborted execution. They were in a bed-and-breakfast in Great Yarmouth.

“This isn’t real,” Basira said.

Daisy laughed, and her laugh was growl. “And what makes you say that?”

“I did the reading. Found out everything there is to know about how to tell from hallucinations or lucid dreams, because I was never gonna get stuck in a place like that again. This is a nightmare.”

“Or a good dream,” Daisy murmured into her neck.

Basira closed her eyes.

The knife moved forward slowly, but it didn’t need to be fast. It was sharp, and Daisy was still. The blade sank steadily into her skin, up between two ribs, up right into her heart. The blood leaked out silently, warm and cold and slick and viscous, tiny trickles down over Basira’s hands.

Daisy inhaled sharply, coughed once, and sagged.

Basira slid the knife out, not quite as neatly as it’d gone in, and caught Daisy under the arms.

“It’s a practice round,” she said. “My mind letting me know I’ll be able to do it when I find you for real.”

Daisy’s head rolled on Basira’s shoulder, rolled to face her and smiled all white and red. “What are you gonna do if it turns out this is real?”

“It’s not real.”

“What if it is?”

“It’s. Not.”

Daisy coughed once more, then twice more; abrupt, barking sounds, like sandpaper ripped across skin. Her eyes were unfocusing and her body was getting heavier and her blood was puddling up on the carpet.

_“Fy cariad,_ what have you done to me?”

Basira dropped her to the floor and hit the wall. Daisy didn’t cough again. Her gashed chest stayed facing the ceiling, but her head lolled sideways, away from Basira. Her shaggy, tangled hair fell over her eyes.

“It’s not real,” Basira said, self-consciously rubbing over the blood beading up on her own chest, the twin jabs from Daisy’s thumbs. “This is a dream. This―this is me asleep. I’ll wake up and it’s gone. I’ll just open my eyes.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight and then opened them. A thin stream of Daisy’s blood was creeping toward her feet. She shut her eyes and opened them again, and Daisy was still there.

“Okay.” She kept her breath even. This wasn’t real, and so she wasn’t scared, she would _not_ be scared. “Okay, I―I need to get out of bed. I’ll get up out of bed and I’ll go to the toilet and get dressed and then I’ll―”

Her hands closed around the doorknob and shook it. It didn’t turn. It―it was locked. It shouldn’t lock. It didn’t have a lock. She rattled the knob and shoved at the door and hit the wood with her palm―

“No. No, no, no, this―this isn’t real, this is just trying to scare me. It’s not gonna work. I just―I just have to get out and wake up and―”

The heel of her hand pounded against the doorframe and stung and something in the bone screamed, and Basira spun and pressed her back to the door. She couldn’t keep her breath under control anymore. Daisy kept bleeding. The room was small and the window was open to nothing but a sheer drop to sharp asphalt and the sky was black.

She let the fear turn to anger.

“Are you watching me?” she shouted.

The sky didn’t respond. Part of her wanted to run up to the window and scream in its face, but the bigger part didn’t dare move closer to Daisy, couldn’t even think of stepping over her, touching her. Basira craned her neck against the door and clapped her hands over her eyes. She’d had dreams like this before, almost, dreams of darkness and torches and Jon watching, and when she covered her eyes she could shield herself from him at least―but they’d stopped when she signed that job sheet, joined the Institute, so what was this now? 

It didn’t matter. She knew she was asleep. She knew she was having a nightmare. The morning would come. The sun would rise and it would wake her up. This wouldn’t last forever. She just had to wait it out.

Her hands were wet. She was crying. She didn’t care.

* * *

Three hours later, she woke up.

The window was closed. The walls were intact. The carpet was clean. The sky was pale. She didn’t have any scratches or bruises or aches.

Basira got up, and didn’t pause to wash up before she started packing her things into a suitcase that seemed like it’d only just been unpacked. Having her own flat was overrated. She was moving back to her cot in the Archives.


End file.
